YouTubeThe politics surrounding the science and policy of climate change is really, really nasty. Name-calling and ad hominem attacks are rampant. The recent wikileaks release of John Podesta's emails (Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign manager) uncovered a remarkable effort by minions at the Center for American Progress to silence University of Colorado political scientist Roger Pielke Jr. whose research suggested that climate change has not yet caused any discernible uptick in property damage. Pielke details his ordeal in an op-ed "My Unhappy Life as a Climate Heretic" over at the Wall Street Journal. As Pielke explains:

Much to my surprise, I showed up in the WikiLeaks releases before the election. In a 2014 email, a staffer at the Center for American Progress, founded by John Podesta in 2003, took credit for a campaign to have me eliminated as a writer for Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight website. In the email, the editor of the think tank's climate blog bragged to one of its billionaire donors, Tom Steyer: "I think it's fair [to] say that, without Climate Progress, Pielke would still be writing on climate change for 538."

The only acceptable narrative for the activists over at the Center for American Progress is that climate is making the weather worse resulting in ever more property damage and anyone questioning the politically correct story must be drummed out of polite society.

So what did wikileaks reveal? Among other things, an email from ThinkProgress chief editor Judd Legum to major Democratic donor (and climate warrior) Tom Steyer bragging about how he had successfully trolled FiveThirtyEight statistical analysis website proprietor Nate Silver into getting rid of Pielke. Why go after Pielke? Because he had published an article at 538 based on his research daring to point out that so far climate change had not boosted "normalized" property damage. Normalized basically means taking into account the fact that as a result of economic and population growth there is more property and lives at risk from bad weather.

Pielke's conclusion elicited fury from activists and some climatologists. Silver published a rebuttal to Pielke by MIT hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel. Interestingly, Emanuel's rebuttal did not actually question Pielke's data showing that normalized damages had not been increasing. Instead, Emanuel cited studies in which climate models projected, among other things, that future warming would generate more powerful hurricanes that would cause more damage. Emanuel made an interesting distinction between trend detection and event risk assessment. He offered an illustration in which researchers report that the number of bears in a forest had just doubled. In this case, mauling statistics (trend detection) based on earlier bear populations would not be a reasonable guide to the mauling risks (event assessment) forest strollers would now face.

"When it comes to certain types of natural hazards, there are more bears in the woods," wrote Emanuel. "For example, there is a clear upward trend in overall North Atlantic hurricane activity by virtually all metrics, over the past 30 years or so, though the cause of this is still uncertain." Emanuel's claim was written in 2014. But are there in fact as a result of climate change more hurricanes lurking in the North Atlantic woods?

A recent analysis looking at historical changes in Atlantic hurricanes and tropical storms by researchers at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory finds that "the historical tropical storm count record does not provide compelling evidence for a greenhouse warming induced long-term increase" in the North Atlantic.

Emanuel and other modelers believe that warming will strengthen hurricanes. In other words, bigger bears will roam the woods. However, a September, 2015 study by researchers at NOAA's National Hurricane Center reported that "the global frequency of category 4 and 5 [more intense] hurricanes has shown a small, insignificant downward trend while the percentage of category 4 and 5 hurricanes has shown a small, insignificant upward trend between 1990 and 2014. Accumulated cyclone energy globally has experienced a large and significant downward trend during the same period." The bears are not yet getting bigger, but the models say they will soon.

So two years later what do we know about the loss trends that might be related to climate change? A study published in Nature Geoscience in October 2015 used a regression-based approach instead of normalization to analyze hurricane loss trends in the United States. The researchers reported:

Based on records of geophysical data, we identify an upward trend in both the number and intensity of hurricanes in the North Atlantic basin as well as in the number of loss-generating tropical cyclone records in the United States that is consistent with the smoothed global average rise in surface air temperature. We estimate that, in 2005, US$2 to US$14 billion of the recorded annual losses could be attributable to climate change, 2 to 12% of that year's normalized losses.

On the other hand, a November 2015 review article in Climatic Change noted that the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Special Report for Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (IPCC-SREX) report ...

...demonstrated for the first time comprehensively that anthropogenic climate change is modifying weather and climate extremes. The report also documents, what has been long known, that losses from natural disasters, including those linked to weather, have increased strongly over the last decades. Responding to the debate regarding a contribution of anthropogenic climate change to the increased burden from weather-related disasters, the IPCC-SREX finds that such a link cannot be made today, and identifies the key driver behind increases in losses as exposure changes in terms of rising population and capital at risk.

And in a more recent analysis by reinsurer Munich Re's Head of Geo Risks Research Peter Hoeppe notes in a March 2016 article in Weather and Climate Extremes that ...

...the number of loss relevant weather extremes has increased significantly. There is increasing evidence that at least part of these increases are driven by global warming. The increases in losses are driven predominantly by higher exposed values due to increasing wealth and population in many regions. The task to quantify the significantly smaller signal of climate change is very difficult as some more confounding parameters have to be considered for which data availability if confined.

Let's just say that the question of how much climate change contributes to current damages caused by weather extremes is still actively being debated. Just not by Pielke.

Disclosure: Pielke expressed some reservations about my book The End of Doom in his review. I rebut him. I do note that my book has a long section devoted to reporting the research on climate change and weather damages.

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There's been a poll or two, but they've been as C. Anacreon describes - i.e. either self-selected "climate scientists" or "people known to the poll taker" - i.e. friends of the author.

Otherwise, like you say, it's 97% of studies, and that number is just "that agree that the world is warming and human activity is contributing in some, possibly even beneficial, way." The "consensus" on "the world is ending and it's all the fault of the Koch Brothers" is much, much smaller.

Plus, it bears pointing out that if your climate science meta-study set is: Mann, Mann, Mann, Hansen, Jones, Hansen, Mann, Jones, Mann, Hansen, Jones, Mann, Michaels, Hansen, Mann, Jones, Hansen, Mann, Mann & Jones, it's not hard to see how you get a "95% consensus" among the studies, where if you only counted scientists your number would be much lower right out of the gate.

When the lightbringer was still alive in Cuba they regularly reported him getting roughly 100% of the votes. I am pretty sure the same dynamics apply anytime progressives are involved in determining who believes what.

Joke's on you, I was gonna needle him for not reviewing Steyn's book, which is more relevant to topic at hand.
Ron claims that, because there's no progress, there's nothing to report on (which, process IS the punishment), but reviewing the book he wrote to offset the costs of the suit would be nice. Particularly since it's not making any huge claims. Just that Mann is a bad scientist, with corroborating testimony from actual scientists (including seriously pro-ACGW ones).

Did he sell to avoid having to post the disclaimer, or sold because peak oil is lately looking like trough oil, or sell because the spread between trough oil and what he might expect to gain if he holds on to the shares is less than the value of the time he spends having to copy/paste the disclaimer?

Saying that hurricanes aren't going to grow monstrous and much more numerous due to climate change isn't even a climate skeptic position. Chris Landsea is more or less the #1 scientist at the National Hurricane Center says that the oceans are warming, and anthropogenic change is a part of that... but it's not really affecting hurricanes much (IIRC back in 2005 he said that Katrina and Rita might have been 1 or 2 MPH faster due to climate change).

Fun fact about that 2005 season, so often pointed to as evidence for hurricanes being affected by climate change: The 2005 season had 28 named storms. This beat the previous record of 21 in 1933.

Any hurricane data we have that comes from before the satellite era is worthless, but there's one key difference between 1933 and 2005: In 2005, 21 of 28 storms made it west of 60 degrees west longitude. In 1933, all 21 storms made it west of there. Wonder why.

I know you're not making that argument, but where it fails is that it isn't just water temp, it's water temp contrasted with air temp and atmospheric temp. The purpose of hurricanes is heat transfer from the tropics to the poles.

Well, there is 'Global Warming' and there is 'Anthropogenic Global Warming'. I can believe the climate is changing to a warmer baseline, I'm just having real trouble with the evidence that *human activity is a primary (or even a significant) driver* of that warming.

If its not the latter, all this talk about carbon emissions and recycling is pointless. As are all the plans to extend government control over our lives to 'save the planet'.

Well, there is 'Global Warming' and there is 'Anthropogenic Global Warming'. I can believe the climate is changing to a warmer baseline, I'm just having real trouble with the evidence that *human activity is a primary (or even a significant) driver* of that warming.

I have different levels of skepticism for each logical leap. I think there are serious flaws with the way temps are measured and statistically manipulated, but I'm not particularly wed to the idea that the globe isn't warming. It may or may not be. The one thing that does drive me nuts is when the cultists show a graph that was obviously smoothed over hundreds of years when using ice core samples, but contains 6-month data points when thermometer and satellite data was made available. I'm not wholly convinced that there weren't more extreme spikes in temperature in the past that were simply smoothed out due to the limitations of ice core sampling.

I'm more skeptical of anthroprogenic global warming. The idea that the CO2 and methane emitted from human created and controlled sources is causing warming is pretty extreme, and I haven't seen nearly enough evidence to convince me.

AGW is valid to this extent ... All else being held equal, a doubling of the concentration of CO₂ will result in an increase in ambient temperature of about 1.1°C due to the fact that the CO₂ molecule absorbs electromagnetic energy in the infrared spectrum and some of it is released in the form of molecular kinetic energy (which is what we measure as heat) instead of just being re-emitted as electromagnetic energy again.

The problem is, that a global climate isn't a lab. It's a chaotic system and no one knows all the inputs and feedbacks. Empirical evidence seems to suggest a feedback multiplier of about 1.1 to 1.3. The catastrophists use a feedback multiplier of up to 6.

That IMHO is where skepticism should take one, if one allows the evidence and physics to guide one.

I prefer no evidence and psychics to guide my opinion.

*peers into silicon crystal ball; on the other side, inverted, a tableau appears: Mark Steyn and Michael Man duke it out in cosmic battle, as infinite as the time it takes the DC Superior Court to bring their case to trial*

The increased hurricane numbers and damage prediction makes a lot of sense. More heat means warmer water. Warm water makes hurricanes, so warmer water should be more and more powerful hurricanes.

It is not so much warm water that makes hurricanes, or more powerful hurricanes, or any other weather really, but the difference (delta T) in temperature between places that drives such dynamic behavior. If water is getting warmer everywhere per se, than the dynamic behavior would not change - especially for the kinds of deltas were talking about here (tenths of a degree over decades).

The sad thing: all the criticisms you've just mentioned are totally valid, and you haven't even touched on the statistical modeling. Climate models really belong in the same category of work as macroeconomic forecasting, a field known for 2 things: 1) use of intense, rigorous math to characterize a complex, highly nonlinear system, and 2) a laughably poor record in making predictions. Climate forecasting really has only one question worth asking: is the climatic variability we observe within the bounds of the natural variability we'd see without any anthropogenic effects, or do anthropogenic influences exert a unique effect? The problem, which is probably insoluble, is that the system is too complex for us to ever really understand its natural variance.

The increases in losses are driven predominantly by higher exposed values due to increasing wealth and population in many regions. The task to quantify the significantly smaller signal of climate change is very difficult as some more confounding parameters have to be considered for which data availability if confined.

No doubt. Another of those confounding parameters is increased subsidization of living in disaster-prone locales. Try to pull that out of the mix.

Based on records of geophysical data, we identify an upward trend in both the number and intensity of hurricanes in the North Atlantic basin as well as in the number of loss-generating tropical cyclone records in the United States that is consistent with the smoothed global average rise in surface air temperature.

Wouldn't the hurricane record naturally be spottier the farther you go back? It's not much of stretch to note that damage from one storm can be wiped away by damage from another storm, not to mention other factors such as erosion and forestation.

Oh right. Any hurricane statistics more than about 60 years old are highly suspect. Just like any temperature records from before 1900. How the fuck do you calculate the "global average temperature" in fucking 1880?

Take some ice core samples. Enter data, throw in some random variables that you just pulled out of your ass. Turn on the data juggling algorithm. See results. Don't like the results? Get other ice core sample, repeat until the right results come out. Declare that it's almost too late and that heretics must be burned.

How the fuck do you calculate the "global average temperature" in fucking 1880?

I was actually dumb enough to ask a similar question on Twitter, during one of my rare defenses of Gary Johnson no less.

I simply asked how these folks commenting on global warming arrived at an average global temperature before 1905. All I got back was a bunch of brochures on the mini-ice age. Never one actual answer.

BTW, nobody asked why I picked that year, which is probably obvious to most here. There were no direct temperature readings of either pole, of any kind, before 1909. And the South Pole was not reached until 1917.

Accumulated Cyclonic Energy seems to correlate better with El Nino than global temperature. My eyeballs say 800 +/- 200 is a good round number, and we've seen both below 600 and above 1000 since 1998 when the end of the world started.

That's why I am so impatient with the hyperbolic claims about the 'unprecedented' observations of the present. It's almost impossible to compare observations from the past with observations of the present because of the different instruments used, the poor documentation of times of observation, poor documentation of calibration, etc.

I'm reminded of another phenomenon involving unprecedented observations. Until a couple of decades ago, it was a decadal occurance to have some anthropologist/journalist publicize the discovery of some new small group of people who had incredible longevity. Inevitably these people were pretty cut off from the rest of the world. And consistently and universally, each of these groups had no written record of births. You just had people who claimed to be 150 - 250 years old. And nobody alive to contradict them. :/

And oddly, that longevity did not translate to the descendants of that population who were born in an era where accurate birth records existed.

While it is possible to collect data about the past using modern day observations or old records, one has to be very, very mindful of the limitations of that data in telling us in the present what was happening in the past.

People before Noah lived for hundreds and hundreds of years, because the earth had a heavy atmosphere from all the water vapor in it and that pressure increased life expectancy and lizards keep growing as long as they live and that's why there were dinosaurs before Noah's flood but not after.
*This is an actual thing that has been argued by young earth creationists.

Japan was held as an example of longevity for a while (in spite of lots of smoking and known stomach cancer issues). They decided to have a celebration of all the oldsters, and found out that most of the 90+ yr old people had died long ago, but they don't keep good records of deaths and relatives like to keep collecting their pensions. Suddenly no one mentions Japan anymore.

Meh. The planet might be warming. Hell, man night even be the cause. My opinion is "so what?". The greatest advances in science and the arts have come from civilizations that lived in warm periods. And, you can feed more people. And, is rather be warm than cold. And, isn't it better to liver in a warning period rather than an ice age? You know that painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware in a boat? I've heard that it was so cold that year, that Washington and his men walked across the frozen river.

Guess what Pielke? If you had maybe not been a dick and publicly declared you wouldn't talk to people because you didn't agree with what they wrote without giving them a chance to address your concerns, maybe reporters would want to talk to you. That you being a dick to people makes people not want to talk to you doesn't mean there is some nefarious plot against you. It doesn't mean:

I didn't know reporters had such lists. But I get it. No one likes being told that he misreported scientific research, especially on climate change. Some believe that connecting extreme weather with greenhouse gases helps to advance the cause of climate policy. Plus, bad news gets clicks.

Yet more is going on here than thin-skinned reporters responding petulantly to a vocal professor.

The reality is Pielke has a well-earned reputation for being a brat. That's been a big source of trouble for him which he seems to either be unaware of or just ignore.

I read enough of Brandon Shollenberger to know he doesn't have a clue nor does he seem interested in the details concerning Roger Pielke Jr. Perhaps Mr. Shollenberger should better inform himself of what was going on.

All this climate change shit is is nasty folks trying to get into a position to determine who gets how much energy so they can extract the most rents by being gatekeepers.

This kind of thing goes way back. In one of Jane Jacob's books she described how in areas that needed irrigation the person who controlled the water distribution always became a tyrant. Without water you would die and that made the value of the water very high therefore to survive you would have to pay a lot in cash, other resources, and a willingness to be subservient to the water holder.

Listen progs, the climate is always changing.
Always has, and if the past is any indiction, always will...

Spring - the flowers start blooming the temp is rising
Summer - the flowers are in bloom - the temp is getting warmer
Fall - leaves are falling and the temp is getting cooler
Winter - most if not all the leaves are off the trees and the temp gets colder
Repeat with Spring.

It just goes round and round like that song 'The Circle Game.'

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

Straff, thanks for posting that tremendous Joe Rogan podcast link with Jordan Peterson. I listened to the entire thing today while driving and it exceeded any expectations I may have had for it (and you), and I also learned a lot.

Damned squirrels. My previous post will probably show up after I post this one.

A couple of years ago I was visiting with some friends in a restaurant when I realized I had a tickle in my throat. I plucked a pussy hair out of my mouth, held it up in the light and said "Well, would you look at that. "

We have maybe fifty years of reliable climate data (probably more like thirty, but either way...). That's really not enough information to do anything more than inform your guesses about the weather in a century.

My grandfather said when he was a boy (turn of the century) the icicles would hang from the corner of the porch and touch the ground every winter. Then it got warmer, then colder again. When I was a kid we hunted rabbits in the snow every winter and in the summer when we swam in the local lakes it was like bathwater. Then in the late nineties the grass stayed green all winter. Now it is getting colder again.

Fuck her. She essentially called anyone not voting for her a racist. And then in her "regret.....remarks" said, well, maybe not everyone. I hope the DNC keeps on the same path they are on. It will be better for personal liberty. I know many have reservations about Trump but holy shit that woman was not the path to take.

since I'm not a racist, I don't really care if people repeatedly call me a racist because they disagree with my politics. Maybe you all should do the same. It certainly seems like it would take a load of stress out of your life.

"Hillary apologized right away after that and said that she misspoke and that she regretted the comment. That's something that Donald Trump wouldn't do, you know,"

First, notice she didn't say she was wrong, just that she 'mispoke'; used the wrong words, I guess.
And then 'Trump wouldn't have done that'. Yeah, well, he hadn't called Clinton's supporters "pompous twits", either.

So why am I convinced that I will show up on this McCarthy-esque black list? I teach feminist criticism.

Your parents must be so proud.

I can understand other teachers' concerns regarding this combination of influences but I have found that the underlying impulse of most liberal social justice warriors (and how is that a negative term? I think it's badass, but I digress) is to guarantee open expression of ideas without causing distress to others.

The entire article is dripping with condescension and smugness. These progs never learn. Guess what Mr. Gender Studies Prof, you're not that smart, you're not imparting wisdom on your students, and you're a fucking relic of a broken and outdated education system.

I've sat in some of those indoctrination classes, and I've had to make the choice between a good grade and being true to my principles. I wasn't afraid of opening my mind to new facts, but I was afraid of poisoning the well and having my blowoff classes pull my GPA down.

There is a massive dichotomy between the stated purpose of college (to expand your horizons) and the actual purpose of college (to get a piece of paper allowing you to start a career). Until those purposes are aligned, there is always going to be a tension between the professors of these indoctrination classes and the students who are forced to take them.

I subscribe to the Socratic method — it's not my job to tell you what to think, but it is my job to show you how to question and learn in order to think better.

My law school experience is that in modern times, the Socratic method means "hide the ball and castigate students for not knowing what they haven't been taught yet." It was more about ego stroking than actually conveying testable material to the students.

The fact that this prof uses the Socratic method isn't at all surprising. He seems to be really fucking full of himself.

Indeed. I remember when I read the Apologia in the original Greek that Socrates, as depicted by Plato, had this smarmy assholeness that doesn't translate into English well. I could fully understand why they wanted to off that douchebag.

I have a friend and a client who holds doctorates in physics and in aerodynamics; I did not know this until I did a search to find contact info after I had lost it.
I complimented him once on his perseverance in the amount of study that took. He thanked me for the compliment and complimented me on the effort it took to deliver [my/our] service to him.
And made it clear he was 'Jim', not 'Doctor Jim'.
If you gotta brag, it ain't earned.

After the linked tantrum/occupy style video, my Utubevision followed with Alex Epstein giving a speech. I had not heard of him until a few days ago. How those who go in front of kids who are only there to dispute and argue about what you have to say, and not just throw the podium at them is beyond me. Those of you who do that are better people than me.

ince Texas lawmakers have decided to randomly assign personhood to aborted fetal tissue, it's only fitting they should have a chance to grieve for the millions of lives lost whenever men spill their seed (which is a lot).

Yes, because there are no relevant differences between a sperm cell and an embryo, which magically becomes mere tissue the moment one crosses the doorway of an abortion clinic.

I think it's important to note that people don't host parties underground just for kicks, but because there is so much red tape and expense involved when you try to host an above-board, fire-safe party. It's either illegal to play music late at night due to noise ordinances, or exceedingly expensive to get the necessary permits in order.

I wonder if they will ever realize that excessive regulation is a problem in other areas.

State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's witch hunt against supposed "climate-science deniers" became an even more embarrassing debacle late last month — and just might wind up ending his career.

A state judge ruled in favor of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think tank whose Freedom of Information request the AG had denied. That gave Schneiderman 30 days to cough up documents concerning his agreements with other states' AGs, and with a group of green activists, about their joint persecution of ExxonMobile and other entities for supposed "climate fraud."

CEI had been targeted by one of Schneiderman's co-conspirators, the Virgin Islands AG, with legal demands that plainly aimed at suppressing free speech and scientific inquiry that the nonprofit sponsors.

The think tank's lawyers believe the documents could show improper conduct by the AGs. If they do, Schneiderman faces serious trouble.

I don't understand why I should be concerned about this as a libertarian. If private citizen A calls private citizen B to complain about private citizen C's research why should I be concerned if A convinces B that C's research sucks and should not be printed?

The average guy at Home Depot knows more than some ph.d. scientist about climate change. And the fact that scientists have sometimes difficult differences of opinion about a complicated theory and sometimes go to the press to air these differences just go to show not that interpreting the natural world can be difficult, but instead is evidence of fraud and deceit on the part of said scientists. It's really better to go with the opinion of an uninformed blowhard on the AM dial.